Reinstated CCC chair fails in attempt to safeguard decisions made while agency “did not have a properly designated chair”
By most appearances and measures, systems have run relatively smoothly since Shannon O’Brien returned to the chair seat at the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission. There’s always gonna be some catching up to do after a top official at a major state government agency is banished for two years, still even the CCC’s harshest critics couldn’t argue that operations have notably slowed.
This week, however, tension mounted between the three active appointed members of the body during a public meeting at the commission’s Worcester office. Though not the highest profile item on the body’s agenda, which also included putting finishing touches on social consumption rules, a discussion about parliamentary procedure sparked debate and ended in a 2-1 vote, with commissioners rejecting a motion to re-affirm votes that took place while O’Brien was gone.
State Treasurer Deb Goldberg initially suspended O’Brien in September 2023, and fired her nearly a year later in September 2024 for “gross misconduct” and being “unable to discharge the power and duties of a CCC commissioner.” But after years of contention that featured a lively court battle and relative denouement with the release of thousands of pages detailing the madness consuming the CCC in 2023, this September, Superior Court Judge Robert Gordon found that “O’Brien’s actions did not constitute ‘gross misconduct’.” The judge also ruled that O’Brien “shall be reinstated to her position … effective immediately”—with backpay.
Questioning votes taken under ad hoc leadership
O’Brien has mostly looked ahead without too much bitterness in her public comments since returning to the helm, tending to everyday business before the board rather than harping on the complex cable drama-worthy quagmires tethered to her ouster and exonerating comeback. The exception to that reticence however has come in the chair’s words about votes that took place during her involuntary break. At her first meeting back, on Oct. 2, O’Brien said that she is looking into that question with help from inside and outside of the commission.
To recap: Upon her unceremonious exit from the CCC in 2023, O’Brien had attempted to name Commissioner Kimberly Roy as acting chair. Other commissioners disagreed, however, and instead held several contentious and rather humiliating public votes to fill the interim spot. The (lack of) an apparent prescribed process led to a monthslong game of musical chairs, and to what the reinstated boss said may be certain compromised votes and decisions made under the ad hoc acting chairs.
In a statement released after the Oct. 2 meeting, O’Brien’s first back on the job, CCC Executive Director Travis Ahern clarified: “Before taking any action to re-affirm the Commission’s work over the last two years—including the approval of hundreds of licenses and two regulatory reform packages—the Chair and I will consult with the state Attorney General’s office to confirm previous Commissioner votes were taken in line with the law.”
Those and other consults in the time since spurred O’Brien to put the issue back on the table this Wednesday. The chair opened the discussion about past votes: “As I stated when I returned from my illegal suspension and firing, my sole compass will be to follow the statute, to follow the laws. … In my case, Judge Gordon rendered that what happened to me was illegal, so all of the subsequent votes are moot from the beginning.”
O’Brien continued: “What I am trying to do right now is to protect the commission. This may be an extra step that I think is appropriate and needed so we can tie everything up. I would argue that [in the years O’Brien was gone] [the CCC] did not have a properly designated chair. And so I would like to affirm all of the votes that happened when we were not properly organized under a legally designated chair [according to Massachusetts law].”
Musical chairs: 2023 redux
Making her case for the re-certification measure, O’Brien retraced how, on her way out the door in 2023, she appointed Commissioner Roy to be acting chair. Roy performed the interim duties in the subsequent meeting, but in the meeting after that, the appointment was ignored, leading to a tense exchange between commissioners, followed by a vote to determine who would take over. We reported at the time:
With O’Brien gone (at least for now), commissioners seemed unclear about the chain of leadership.
“The most important thing this body can do today is to get these regulations finalized.” Taking charge at the beginning of the meeting, Commissioner Kimberly Roy tried to set the tone. She continued, “A lot of business openers, stakeholders, and municipalities are looking to see what we do today. You’re going to see how the sausage is made, because we’re going to live-edit.”
Commissioner Nurys Camargo agreed: “We’re at a critical point where the focus is regulatory. … There is a lot at stake right now.”
But before they could proceed with editing draft regulations around Host Community Agreements and other issues, they had to get on the same page about their temporary hierarchy.
“I know we’re in a tough situation,” Camargo said. “As a body, we have the power and authority to pick an acting chair.”
Commissioner Bruce Stebbins put forward a motion for Roy to assume the chair, noting that, as the body’s secretary, she has filled in for O’Brien on several past occasions. But Camargo and Commissioner Ava Callender Concepcion rejected the motion, leaving the body split without a fifth member.
Camargo then put another motion on the table—to “designate Commissioner Concepcion as acting chair until the return of the chairperson”—which Roy and Stebbins asked her to amend in a way that would simply appoint Concepcion as chair through the ongoing regulatory review meetings.
“There is so much at stake for this commission,” Camargo said, “but for us to move forward and govern ourselves, I am not going to amend my motion.”
“I understand what we’re doing here,” Concepcion said. “I understand the functions and processes that need to take place from this point forward, and I think I am uniquely positioned [to be acting chair] because of that.”
After Camargo’s motion failed, commissioners unanimously approved a motion by Stebbins to appoint Concepcion as the acting chair for the currently scheduled regulatory meetings. Concepcion seconded: “We have work to do,” she said. “We cannot get hung up on this.”
Blocking the vote to reaffirm past actions
Ahead of the discussion about votes that took place during O’Brien’s absence, CCC Director of Government Affairs and Policy Matt Giancola prepared a “report intended to provide a review of all Commission Public Meetings and votes held between September 2023 and September 2025.” It notes: “During this period, the Commission convened a total of 83 Public Meetings [which] can be categorized into five primary purposes with some meetings consisting of multiple purposes: Public Meeting, Regulatory Review Meeting, Executive Session, Public Listening Session, or Public Hearing.”
In the end, though, the re-affirmation attempt failed. With only three CCC members currently active, even one dissenting vote kills the kitten, and on Wednesday that hand came from Commissioner Stebbins. His thoughts on the matter and different perspective from the chair’s were encapsulated in the following exchange:
Stebbins: “It would seem to me that if you’re questioning the selection of an acting chair, if you are challenging that, then all of our votes would essentially be viewed as …”
O’Brien (cutting off Stebbins): “I am not challenging all [of the votes].”
The chair continued: “Someone has raised the term, Are we unwinding what we did? Absolutely not, because they were never wound right in the first place.”
Toward the end of that back-and-forth, Stebbins said that he was having difficulty “wrapping [his] head around” such a vote, further questioning its point and prudence. To which O’Brien said: “The point is that it wasn’t legal.”
“This is ultimately the belt and suspenders,” the chair pitched. “I’m trying to make sure that we are dotting our i’s and crossing our t’s so that in the event anybody is aggrieved by a decision that took place while we did not have a properly designated chair, we will say, Nope, we have approved it.”
